How Election Week 2022 Went Down

One of the issues affecting the gubernatorial and attorney-general races in Kansas is the future of the state’s Supreme Court appointment process. Since 1956 (when a former governor got himself appointed to court via cronyism), the state has functioned under a system where a commission makes recommendations for justices and the governor picks one from that list to appoint. But Republicans, including the ones running for governor and attorney general, want to change that to give the state senate veto power — more like the way Federal Supreme Court appointments are done. Former governor Sam Brownback did just that with the appeals court during his term, and it’s led to a lot more partisan conflicts in the state government, writes Tim Carpenter at the Kansas Reflector. But with Democrats having appointed seven justices to the Republicans’ one in recent years, it’s no surprise that changing the court is an issue Republicans would like to take on.

With 23 percent of the expected vote reporting, Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop is leading Republican Chris West 60 percent to 40 percent in Georgia’s 2nd District. This is no surprise since our forecast had this as a “Likely Democratic” race.

Interpreting the early voting in Pennsylvania is tricky because different counties are handling their mail at different times — Erie isn’t posting its mail ballots first, but Allegheny County (centered on Pittsburgh) did. And those Allegheny votes gave Democrat Fetterman 130,000 votes to Oz’s 22,500. It’s key to keep in mind that the order in which votes are counted is not the same as the order in which votes are cast. It’s like watching highlights from a football game without knowing when in the game they took place.